3DotRobot

“Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

“It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

“It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil. Who is there more impious than backsliding priest? Who more carnal than a recent virgin? This, however, may be a matter of appearance.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

“It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America